David Pogue’s Gadget List of 2008

August 7, 2008, 4:22 pm
David Pogue’s Gadget List of 2008

Two years ago, totally strapped for a column idea, I resorted to raiding my own e-mail Inbox. There I found a reader request:

“I would love to see a feature where you list what you personally use. Call it Pogue’s List or something. It would be great to see what someone as plugged in as you uses personally. Everything tech — watch, laptop, TV, car, digital camera, film camera, like that.”

What’s really surprising to me is how many readers have written to request an update of that list, especially lately.

Actually, the time is probably right. This year alone, I’ve bought several of the products that I reviewed in my column. So here it is: Pogue’s List 2008.

* Camera. When the picture counts, I grab our Nikon D80 and its Amazing 11X Image-Stabilized Lens (Nikon’s 18-200mm zoomer, which cost almost as much as the camera). It’s a fast, loaded, prosumer digital S.L.R. that takes jaw-droppingly beautiful pictures. (I sold my old D50 to my sister.)

But the Nikon is big and bulky, so my wife carries a Canon SD700 IS shirt-pocket camera; it’s also a rockin’ machine. It has image stabilization, it’s fast (processing and focusing), it takes really great movies and the pictures are superb for a little cam. Unfortunately, its autofocus just died this week. So I’m pretty sure I’m going to replace it with the Canon SD890 (5X optical zoom–unheard-of in pocket cams) or the SD950 (which has a 0.6-inch sensor, much larger and therefore better than the usual 0.3-inch or 0.4-inch sensor in pocket cams).

* Camcorder. No question here: Canon HV30. It’s a hi-def tape camcorder that doesn’t kid around with image quality; when they say high definition, they mean it. And it’s got everything: top-loading tape door, mike jack, headphone jack.

To me, all those non-tape camcorders (hard drives, DVDs, memory cards, etc.) have two huge drawbacks. First, all of them–ALL of them–compromise image quality, even the ones that claim to be hi-def, because they have to compress the image to fit the limited storage.

Second, I don’t understand where people think they’re going to store all their movies. Once the hard drive or memory card gets full, you have to empty it onto your computer’s hard drive. And then what?

I have a drawer containing 200 MiniDV tapes, documenting the lives of our three kids. I’d need NINE 300-gig hard drives to store all that. And what are you going to do when the drive dies?

* Cellphone. I occasionally grumble about Verizon, but never about its network; the signal stands head and shoulders above the other companies.

I’ve been a longtime fan of LG’s Verizon phones. When my 8100 died, I treated myself to the 8700, a silver, brushed-metal, superthin flip phone; it was the best-looking phone in the store.

As I wrote last October: “The sound quality amazing. The screen is brilliant. And I took some sample shots with the 2-megapixel camera and found it even better than my own LG.”

Unfortunately, “the darned thing is so thin and slick, it’s hard to hold; a rigid thin slab is not actually very easy to hold in your round, fleshy palm.” Oh, and this phone erased the magnetic strip on two hotel-room key cards before I got smart and started keeping them in different pockets.

I concluded: “If I had to it over again, I would not have bought this expensive, classy, impractical two-seater roadster. I’d have bought the Toyota Camry that my wife did: the LG8300. It’s a nearly perfect cellphone.”

(Why don’t I own an iPhone? Because AT&T has feeble coverage where I live, and because I’m on a two-year Verizon family plan.)

* Computer. I live on a MacBook Air. In the five months I’ve owned it, I’ve missed having the built-in DVD drive once; missed having FireWire about six times; missed the speed of a more serious machine about 20 times.

But I still consider those small sacrifices for the pleasure I get out of this machine the rest of the time. I use it like a glorified Palm Pilot. You pick it up with one hand. It turns on instantaneously. I’ve even read through e-mail while standing in the X-ray line at the airport.

I also just bought a Dell Inspiron 530s (total, delivered and taxed: $497). It’s a tiny little box that you can lay horizontally under your monitor, which is exactly how I have it. My favorite feature is the front panel: memory-card slots, USB, audio in, headphones, and so on. I’m constantly plugging and unplugging stuff, so it makes total sense.

I really shouldn’t reward Dell with any more business, considering how furious I am to this day about the design of my previous machine, a Dell Dimension 4550 tower. It had front-panel USB jacks, too, but they were hidden behind a door that was hinged at the top and only opened about two inches. You had to crawl on the floor with a flashlight every time wanted to plug something in. I sure hope that designer has found some other career.

* Mobile Internet. This is the greatest splurge, and the greatest convenience, in my entire portfolio: a Sierra Compass 597 cellular modem from Sprint. It’s a tiny, 2.5-inch stick of plastic that slides into the MacBook Air’s USB slot and gets me online at impressively high speeds.

The service costs $60 a month, which I find slightly outrageous–it’s clearly designed to gouge corporate drones on expense accounts.

But I have to tell you, in my travels, I’ve seen every kind of Wi-Fi hot spot under the sun. And Sprint’s cellular Internet beats the nation’s network of increasingly flaky hot spots any day of the week; in many a hotel room, it’s turned out to be much faster than Wi-Fi. Not to mention that it gets me online anywhere, even in the 99.9 percent of America where there is no Wi-Fi signal.

I’ve never found a dead spot, and the software is much slicker (and requires less time to connect) than the equivalent modems from Verizon.

* Movies. I bought the Vudu box this year ($300). Its hard drive contains the first 30 seconds of 5,000 movies. When you pick one to watch, it starts playing immediately–and the next section of movie downloads in the background. Great quality, huge selection, elegant software.

The best part: no monthly fees. Movies cost $2 to $4 to rent, or $15 to $20 to buy, meaning that they stay on your Vudu hard drive forever. So when life gets busy, I don’t pay anything.

The service keeps improving since I reviewed this thing last September. More hi-def movies, more TV shows, better features.

I canceled my HBO and Showtime subscriptions–something like $240 a year–which made very little economic sense for us. If I’m lucky, I have time for two or three movies in a month, so it’s much more economical to pay as I go.

* Car. Toyota Prius. Wow, what a great car. In April, I tried to buy a second Prius–and was told there’s a 10-month wait. Thanks a lot, gas crisis.

* TiVo. I bit the bullet and bought the Tivo Series 3, the hi-def masterpiece machine (which has, grrr, already been discontinued). Runs like a Swiss watch, has never let us down. Still the best DVR software and features on the planet. Subscribes to my favorite Web videos. When I’m away, I can program it from across the Internet.

Looking over this year’s Pogue List, I can see that, in my middle age, I’ve gotten fancier in my tastes. A few years ago, you wouldn’t have caught me dead with that $60-a-month cellular modem.

But life is short, travel is hard. And at its best, technology makes the most of both.